The Last Hope
by deepeningheart
Summary: The Animorphs have fallen. The Yeerks are taking Earth. Hope is lost. But out of the ashes rises a new resistance, fighting a hopeless battle, a battle for nothing - a battle for freedom. I am humanity's final chance. I saw them fall. I will see us rise. I am The Last Hope.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

My name is Hope.

I am twelve years old.

And I am about to die.

I'm holding the gun to my own head, screaming something unintelligible at the Hork-Bajir around me. We're in a Yeerk Pool, one of many, underground and dark. The power got cut a while back. We can only see anything because of the fires over by the store sheds, lit by rioters, and fed by them. I can hear screams and smell burning flesh.

Things have gone downhill pretty fast since the Yeerks made their presence know almost a year ago. They didn't mean to; things leaked out. It wasn't like they could've kept a full-scale invasion secret for very long.

The Animorphs – the only human resistance – didn't mean for the secret to come out either, and it wasn't like either of them could have predicted what happened.

Panic. Riots. Death.

When people heard the news – when they believed it – everyone was trying to get to safety. But there was none, and now the Yeerks were out in the open, they knew they had to move fast. Bombing various parliaments, gunning down enemy troops, they used their superior weaponry and spacecraft to devastating effect. Then, once there was nothing to oppose them, they moved in, built their Yeerk Pools, and infested everyone still alive.

The Animorphs did what they could, hiding, saving few, staying alive. They could not go up against Bug Fighters and the Blade Ship. But they tried. They blew up a Yeerk Pool. They got hundreds to safety. They destroyed the Blade Ship. And they survived.

Now they are raiding this Yeerk Pool. It is the central one in a place once called New York City, though it is but a ruin and a wreck now. I was caught but a week ago, on the outskirts of the city, and have been awaiting infestation ever since. With so many new hosts, management problems ensued for the Yeerks, resulting in a delayed shipment of new yeerks to the Centre-City pool. One more week of freedom for me. Five months I have lived alone in the destroyed buildings and the rubble. Five months of scavenging, terror, and pain. My parents were taken long ago, my brothers and sister also. But I escaped.

The Animorphs attacked here, hoping to free us, I suppose. Or to kill Visser One, the Andalite-controller. He makes his base here, ever since they destroyed the original pool. But something went wrong. I don't know what. The cages containing us poor unfortunates were opened, and we ran – to nowhere. For the Yeerk Pools are sealed to us. So someone started a fire . . . broke into the store sheds and threw Dracon beams to the rest of us . . . ran stampeding into the corridors and labyrinthine passages of the place . . .

They're still rioting, getting beaten back and surging forward against the Hork-Bajir and humans who still have Yeerks in their heads. It's impossible to differentiate between friend and foe. It won't last long. We'll all be dead or captured soon. No knowing what's happened to the Animorphs.

I will not be infested. I'm cornered by some Hork-Bajir, on a balcony above the pool. I have a gun – an old-fashioned, human gun – and I am holding it to my own head. If they take one step closer, I will shoot.

Then there is a rush, a roar. The fire has reached something explosive.

Everything is silent to me. Like a dream I see the fire surge, throwing people away, blasting through walls. Then it reaches us. I feel the heat, but not the pain. I see the screaming of the Hork-Bajir as they are consumed. But I am thrown clear of the blaze as a second explosion sends shockwaves through the building. There are two more blasts, then the fire rages unaided. I am lying against a wall, half-destroyed with stone and mortar falling everywhere. No strength left to get up, but it's okay. Death would come by another hand anyway.

The heat is awful. It presses against me like the rock. I hope that the smoke kills me before the fire does. I'm partially protected by the rubble; the wall fell at such an angle that it's mostly blocking the inferno. My cage is my protection.

Then I hear a roar in the distance – not the fire; an animal in pain. A grizzly bear comes crashing out onto the landing beside me, howling in rage. The fire is still strong here, but it ploughs through, regardless of burning fur. Three Hork-Bajir and a number of human-controllers follow with Dracon beams ablaze. The bear turns to fight. I do not see its fate, as at that moment, a strange and awful creature bursts through the wall on my other side. It is Visser One in morph, or a hallucination. But the blue box, shining with an internal light that is such a sweet counterpoint to the searing of the fire, the blue box that is thrown free of the blaze – that is no mirage. It lands by my broken and burnt hand. It is the Escarfil device. I know this from the months of terror, when information was survival. How it has come to me, I cannot say. Perhaps the room under whose wall I lie trapped was some secret storeroom of the Visser's, where he kept the device that was stolen from the Animorphs? Perhaps he was carrying it with him when they attacked the Yeerk pool. All I know is that it came to me. And when I have put my hand on it and taken its power, a Hork-Bajir, too, comes to me; slumping newly dead within my reach. I stretch out my hand . . .

Once I have morphed the Hork-Bajir, forcing my way out of the confining rubble, I am no longer burnt and crushed. My bones have healed, but the smoke is already creeping into my lungs.

I do not remember how I got out. The power of the Hork-Bajir morph helped me force my way to freedom. But I did get out. And I survived. And with me I took the Escarfil device, to help me in this new war.

The Animorphs fell there, in the flames and terror of the Centre-City Pool. At least, I never saw them again, nor heard of them, but when I tell the stories I say that they are out there somewhere, still trying, still helping.

I can only hope that it is true.


	2. Chapter One

**Chapter One**

" . . . and we intercepted another transmission from the Bug fighters over the west end of the city, but Farrow can't tell if it's another trap or not . . . "

I wake up to the sound of Nathan, my lieutenant, giving a report. They talk at me even when I sleep these days, but it's not their fault. I always sleep with both eyes open, and even when I'm awake I often get that dead tired look, so I'm told.

Five years, it's been. Five years since I gained the morphing power. Seems like longer. A lifetime, at least.

I'm seventeen now, not the oldest by far in this rag-tag band of resistance fighters we call The Last Hope. But I am the most important. I'm their leader; a general almost, because I founded us, and because I have the morphing technology. I told them that it had been entrusted to me, that the Animorphs, in that last, fateful raid, had singled me out and given me this greatest weapon. Not true, you know that. But it's good for morale. I've always been good at making people feel the way I want them to. Charisma, my mother called it, back in the day. Whatever it is, it does the trick of keeping us together and fighting.

Some days I wonder why we even bother. What are we fighting for, really? A handful of wrecked buildings and rubble-covered streets? What are we dying for? The chance to say that this land is ours, and that no Yeerk slug will ever dare defile it again? Like that's going to happen. Like we could win.

But on my good days I think I know that we're fighting because the alternative is so much worse than death. Because there is honour and beauty in dying like we do, rather than screaming yourself into oblivion in the cage of your own head. We are fighting because there is no other option, not because we have a chance of winning. Well, maybe we do. I keep telling my people – hope is everything. If you believe you can do it, then you can.

The trouble is, I'm never really sure if I believe it myself.

Ah well, that's a leader's lot, isn't it? To lead your people down a path without ever knowing if it's the right one? And even if it sometimes seems right to me, is it really okay to sacrifice their lives just so we can all die 'honourably'? Jeez, sometimes I sound like a freaking Andalite.

But for now I deal with the day-to-day problems of our little rebel base here. Nathan is twenty-two, and one of the few others here with the morphing power. I gave it out very selectively, as you never know who you can trust. Also, it gives the lower ranks something to aspire to – distinguish yourself in loyalty and courage, and who knows – someday you might be able to turn into a hawk! At least if they live that long, that is. I also use it for healing, but that's another story.

"Sorry, Nathan, could you just repeat all of that?" I mumble groggily, sitting up properly and rubbing sleep from my eyes. He makes an irritated noise, but I know he doesn't mind too much. He's always saying I should get more sleep.

"Just that the C-C pool is signalling their ships over by the west border, saying that they should move to attack at midday. Farrow says he can't figure out whether or not he's intercepted a legitimate order or something to try draw our forces out. Remember what happened three months ago."

I remember very well what happened three months ago. The Yeerks somehow found out or guessed that we were intercepting their communications, and used false signals to lay a trap for us. We lost almost fifty people then, when they cornered a bunch of us by the shore. It was awful. Tam, one of my deputies, was killed there, trying to defend a useless patch of shoreline that neither side really wanted. I'm not willing to risk such a battle again, but if the Bug fighters that are posted a few miles northwest of our base really are moving, then we are going to do something.

"Alright. Where is Farrow?" I say. Farrow is our technological expert. The man could be an Andalite, and I mean that in the nicest sense of the word.

"He's down in the radio bunker. And in case you were sleeping through my entire report, we're low on fresh food 'cause those supplies we intercepted were just ammo and cans of coke. Turns out Yeerks have a sweet tooth. Here." He tosses me a can, and I catch it automatically, pressing it to my ear to hear the bubbles. I roll my eyes.

"Well, have Lily and Haruka take a patrol out to one of the other pools. Try the northern one, outside the city; we raided the shoreside one last time."

Nathan nods and moves off. I heave myself to my feet, tossing the can of coke in the air. It's been ages since I've had anything sweet. Normally, the supplies we intercept from the Yeerks are basic rations for their troops, and endless ammo and Dracon beams, of course. Someone must have wrangled a bonus. Good on them, not that they'll be getting any. I open my can as I walk down the corridors of the battered old four-storey apartment building we're using as a headquarters, and fizz sprays everywhere. Drat. I'd forgotten that they did that if you shake them. It's so crowded in this place that there's not really anywhere to sleep, hence why I was napping sitting upright on a pile of crates. It's about ten in the morning, and sunlight is filtering through the cracked and filthy windows, lighting my way. There are many other people in the hall, of all ages, but they part respectfully for me. I soon make it to Farrow's 'lair'; one of our precious bunkers, all kitted out with his technological junk. Our bunkers are mostly reinforced cellars, although we did carve out some of them ourselves. They're sturdy enough to protect us from anything from bombing to gas, though we're still working on the whole ventilation room. The problem is, there are only eight of them, and we need all the room we can get, with over three hundred rebels to squeeze into them. Farrow insisted that his equipment be given one of them, and nagged me 'til I gave in. It's a lot of stuff; enough computer screens, pirated Yeerk stuff and radio transmitters to fill a commercial cellar. Used to be a wine loft, I think – Farrow picked this bunker 'cause he said he likes the smell. But anyway, the most annoying thing about Farrow's little base isn't the space he takes up – it's the antenna's he claims he needs to get all the coverage of Yeerk telecommunications. They've got to be outside, and so that means long cables running all over the city, which could lead people to out base and are always getting snapped, and then the receivers themselves, which are difficult and dangerous to repair and break every time a bomb gets dropped, or a Bug fighter flies overhead, or a freaking bird lands on them.

However, Farrow and all his little games are very valuable. We couldn't do without him, forever meddling with his little gadgets and improving our weapons and telling us exactly what the Yeerks are saying. He's been hiding from me a little ever since three months ago, as I think he feels that I blame him for what happened. I do, in a way, even though I know there was no way he could have told it was a trap. I think I'm just looking for a way to offload some of the awful guilt.

But Farrow might well be back in my good books today, if he really can give us information on Bug fighter movements. We've been waiting for weeks for those ones to move, 'cause I think they're in a position that could enable us to take them. A Bug fighter of our very own would be a wonderful advantage, besides which, if we are going to be attacked, I really do want to know about it.

"Farrow!" I yell, tramping my way into his bunker. It's huge, about the size of a whole apartment, and filled with flurries of activity.

Farrow comes hurrying over. He's a small man, of about fifty or so, with very little of his greying brown hair left, and keen brown eyes under his glasses. Apparently, before the war he was a professor of computer science or something or other at a university somewhere, quite important. Whatever it was, I'm glad he survived the chaos.

"Please don't yell in here, Miss Hope; there are some very delicate operations in progress," he says sternly when he reaches me. It's his tradition greeting, to deliver a scolding to my shoulder, which is about as high as he is. There's always something delicate that I mustn't disturb. It's his way of coping with 'outsiders' near his precious equipment. He has his hordes of helpers, who he doesn't mind handling it, but they can be just as difficult. It's like having thirty Farrows. It gets a little much sometimes.

"Nathan says you have information for me," I say, trying to keep my heart from pounding. I could do with some good news.

His face changes from disapproving to secretive so quickly it's almost comic.

"Indeed," he says dramactically, "although I'm not sure wether you'll like it or not."


End file.
